Say it ain't so!

Coach Weis has said he won't leave.
He's built a big beautiful house.
He told Chris Myers there would be nothing to lure him to the NFL..

And yet, this morning, this little item appeared in the Newark Star-Journal, at the tail-end of an article about the NY Giants' pursuit of Scott Pioli for their GM opening..

If the Giants hire Pioli, it would add life to the rumors Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis will be the team's next head coach. Weis was the Patriots' offensive coordinator from 2000-04.

Recently, Weis has publicly stated he would not leave Notre Dame anytime soon, but the same source who discussed Pioli said the Giants have been told Weis would be interested in the job. Weis might simply be taking his public stance because he doesn't want to hurt his recruiting if he stays in South Bend.

Now, consider the source. There have been articles all over the NY papers talking about Charlie and the Giants job, as though to try to recruit him to it-- imagine that, the papers recruiting a guy to a job so they can no doubt start trashing him next season. As we all trash on coaches like Bobby Petrino (who just ran out on a 10 year contract with Louisville to take the Atlanta Falcons job), how terribly disheartening it is to read crap like this. So is this guy just trying to give Giants fans up in Jersey something to talk about around the water-cooler?

Can this be real?

Welcome Golden and Harrison to the fold..

One of the biggest hurdles ND has to overcome every year in recruiting is the fact that South Bend is not the hometown-- or in the home-state-- of many of the top recruits in the country. So kids are often faced with the dilemma of staying close to home (and Mom) at the nearby, often state-affiliated school, or travelling way up north to the cold-weather climate of South Bend.

I don't mean to diminish in any way the significance of this decision for these young men. It's not a trivial thing to consider at 17 or 18 (or 19 in Jimmy Clausen's case) years old.

As a kid growing up in the Northeast, it was a big deal for me (NOT a college football recruit in any way) to choose to go to a school as far south as Kentucky. I got a lot of looks from people-- basically asking-- why would you want to go there? Everything you could ask for academically is available here... so why go anywhere else?

But for whatever reason, I felt it in me to go out and try living in another part of the country-- strike out on my own, in a sense, I guess.

So it gives me all the more respect for these guys from places like Florida, California, and (lately) here in Tennessee who have been choosing to attend Notre Dame. The climate, the academics, the football schedule-- none of them are soft. So to leave the comforts of home and move up to a place like ND-- even as amazing a place as it is-- I applaud these kids for striking out on their own and taking the chance on themselves. I don't think they'll regret it, whatever their football careers may hold.

Just watched Harrison Smith's press conference (hat tip: BlueGraySky)-- which comes hot on the heels of another great Tennessee Catholic High school product, Golden Tate, going Irish. Now here's a kid who lives in Knoxville, within sight of Neyland Stadium, says he's been a Volunteer fan his whole life, and is the son of two Tennessee alums (who were flanking him while he made his announcement)... and he chooses Notre Dame. It's just so good to see a kid that age make a bold, independent move like that. And I'm sure the Vol Nation is shocked-- imagine a kid wanting to leave the comforts of home for a Charlie Weis training camp.

Ah but there were those two magic words-- Charlie Weis.

And so the Irish have (verbally anyway-- always remember CJ Leak) two of three of the top Tennessee recruits-- with, as BGS points out, the third getting set to announce his commitment to either ND or Tennessee on January 6.

So does anyone really think Charlie would take the Giants job? The New York tabloids are all over it, practically begging for Charlie to consider it. And being a Giants fan, I would be even slightly conflicted if it were any other Irish coach, at any other time.

But with the way things are coming together in South Bend-- and more significantly, with the way they're falling apart in New York-- it's hard to imagine for me that Charlie would heed the call to come home to Jersey.

Midnight Drum Circle

You know, one of the best things about being a student at ND in the student section at games (in the first row our second year there) was getting a chance to be so close to the ND drums down on the sidelines.. just came across this video of the midnight drum circle before the Stanford game this year. It's seven and a half minutes long and it just totally takes me back...

Memo to ESPN: you better start getting this straight..

Okay, listen... when you're writing about the whole Charlie Weis/Tom Brady/Brady Quinn angle, it's one thing to make the Brady-play on names... but seriously guys...

I mean, has anyone else spotted this?

The case for Quinn

Brady Quinn will not win the Heisman and it's a shame.

Allen Barra at the New York Sun makes the most compelling argument I've seen in print for why Brady Quinn should win the Heisman.

Here's the money quote:

The uncritical acceptance by so many writers and commentators of Troy
Smith's Heisman worthiness reflects an attitude that has become popular in
college football over the last couple of decades, namely that "the best player
on the best team" — or at least the player on the best team with the gaudiest
stats — is automatically the best player in the nation. This has resulted in
some relatively undistinguished quarterbacks winning the Heisman, most notably
Charlie Ward in '93, Florida's Danny Wuerffel in 1996, Florida State's Chris
Wenke in 2000, and Oklahoma's Jason White in 2003. All of them played for teams that were ranked at or near the top at the time they won the award.

A careful look at the record convinces me that Troy
Smith is destined to join their number. But whatever happens to Smith in the
NFL, Brady Quinn put up numbers this year that were at least the equal of Troy
Smith's, and he did it against tougher opposition and with far less help from
his teammates. By any objective yardstick, he deserves the nod over Troy Smith
as the outstanding college football player of the 2006 season.

Going for it..

According to Len Pasquarelli this morning, more and more NFL head coaches are going for it on 4th down-- and aggressive offensive linemen are loving it, apparently...

It's a regular trend. A phenomenon.
And yet there's not one mention of Charlie Weis in this article. How can that be possible?
I have nothing scientific to back this up, but I'm fairly certain that going for it on 4th and 6 wasn't nearly so popular until sometime last year, after Charlie had done it 8 or 9 times.

Welcome home, Andy.

I know, I know. New York isn't Andy Pettitte's home. Houston is. It's where he's from biologically.
But can anyone deny that New York is where his baseball family lives? It'll just feel right to have him back in pinstripes.
Welcome back, Andy.
Let's just hope that he's still as clutch in September and October as he used to be.
And nevermind my misgivings about the Yanks continuing to pursue over-the-hill veteran pitchers while neglecting youth. The Yanks got Pettitte back without having to sacrifice prospects-- unlike the deal they made for the so-far-disappointing Randy Johnson-- and so far this off-season, the Yanks appear to be learning their lesson that front. We'll see what the rest of the winter holds.

Fly away home..

Sunday afternoon-- On the plane flying back home to Nashville now, after a good morning breakfast with Steve and his family. Thanks again to Steve and his family—especially his wife Melissa, nephew Isaac, and brother-in-law, Todd— for their warm welcome and inviting me into their homes during this trip. It was a good time—despite the outcome of the game—and I was really glad to get to catch up with Steve meet his little 7-month old son, and share Thanksgiving with the whole family. Good times. We’ll have to do it again sometime.

Notes from Game Day

8:30am Saturday-- breakfast: a bagel and a cup of coffee in San Juan Capistrano.

9:30am —first beer of the day, courtesy of the family (mother, father, and what seemed like about 5 sisters) of Casey Cullen on the bus at Anaheim Marriott, waiting to head to the Coliseum.

The bus ride itself was a whole adventure unto itself. We got on the bus right at 9:00—the shuttles were supposed to be running all morning. When we got onboard, the guy who seemed to be in charge indicated that this first bus would leave as soon as it was full.. and it already looked pretty close to full, so we figured we’d be off in no time. But apparently, other alumni in the Orange County area didn’t have plans to tailgate quite as early as we did.. it took nearly an hour for the powers that be to finally decide the bus was full enough to embark on the hour-long trip up to LA.

After the first few minutes of this long wait, it became evident that we were sharing this ride (or rather this wait for a ride) with some family members of one of the ND players. A whole crew of folks on the bus, all wearing ND gear with the #60. Turns out these were all the sisters (and maybe a brother or two) and Mother and Father of Casey Cullen. And they were prepared to tailgate. Not long after everyone realized we’d be on the bus for some time, the Cullens broke out the beer, someone ran to get some extra ice.. and so the long day began with a toast to the family Cullen.

10:50am—our bus arrives in LA, within sight of the Coliseum.. but nowhere to park. Again, apparently the powers that be in the OC Alumni club didn’t think it would be necessary to call ahead—perhaps a week in advance, a day, even an hour in advance to ensure that there would be ample parking to handle 14 buses. So more waiting. About 30 minutes of waiting and circling the block around the stadium. Finally, they decided that the buses would have to drop us off and park elsewhere, then return to pick us up an hour after the game ended.

So finally, by 11:30am, or so, we make it into IrishFest, the official LA Alumni club’s tailgater at Exposition park, about a block from the Coliseum. We buy ourselves tickets for In-N-Out burgers and four beers-a-piece. And they’re serving Guinness. Nice touch.

Lunch and two Guinnesses later, this is where the time-line begins to get a little hazy.
We ate and wandered around the park a bit—lots of Irish fans out for the festivities.. and we bumped into a few members of the band who arrived on their 6:30am flight from South Bend.

So then we decide to take a walk out around the stadium. Being not afraid, we head straight into the belly of USC tailgate country. And for the most part, everyone was quite civil. As is common in most scenes like this I’ve seen, there are very often mixed groups of ND and opposing fans tailgating together—or at least visting together, talking some good humored trash. Nothing too different here.

Lots of “Go Irish” being exchanged between roving bands of ND fans. We are not alone.

There was one amusing moment when, as we were walking along one of the access roads along-side the stadium, toward the ESPN Radio setup, some guy driving a big super-cab pick-up truck slowly through the crowd past us, hangs his head out the window and starts jawing at us—some forgettable crap about how ND was going down, USC was going to whip our tails, yadda yadda yadda… and as he’s doing this, from the other side of the truck, there’s this gnashing, crashing sound. The guy was so taken us and getting in our grills about what losers we were, he wound up scratching the whole passenger side of his nice big new Trojan red truck on some steel barriers that were setup along the curbside. Nice.

So we continue wandering.. make our way over to the front of the Coliseum and take the requisite photo with the famous Olympic façade behind us. We listen to a little of the local 710am ESPN radio broadcast—we were really hoping to catch sight of Colin Cowherd, but no luck there. So we start heading back the way we came when we come across an ND tailgate—and these guys have what appears to be four kegs of beer—right at the base of the wall of the stadium (outside section 28 as I found out later). Not sure exactly who the guy was who was sponsoring it—a guy who goes by ChrisB mentioned something about the board at UHND, which is a site I’ve looked at from time to time. And at some point during the thing, the guy running the tailgate handed me a card for some online sports business.. I’ll check that out and see if it’s worth anything before I mention it here. So we have one beer at this tailgate—pitch a little cash to the guy running the show—with that he says “it’s drink all you want, fellas”…

1:30pm—beers 4 & 5. I remember this because this is when Steve pointed out that Last Call back at the official IrishFest was at 3:30—at which point I check my watch—and suggested we should head back there to use up our remaining beer tickets, then head back here to the UHND tailgate. So we do that.

Somewhere between 2:30 and 4:00pm—back at the UHND tailgate. Jaeger shots (two rounds, and Todd, Steve’s brother-in-law does the first keg-stand of the day. At the USC tailgate next door, someone notices that they’re serving wine and Shrimp cocktail.

Met a nice young woman from Chicago—she and her husband (well, really her husband) are huge subway alum ND fans. Also talked for a long while with a guy from New York who’s another subway alum.. and today was his first college football game (wish it could have turned out better for him). Things got a little out of hand when someone grabbed an SC t-shirt, tore it to shreds and then tried to get people to set the thing on fire. Not too cool—though I do find it a bit unsettling that USC appears to sell flame-retardant apparel.

4:00pm—one last potty break and then we head into the stadium for the 5:00 kick-off.

Various notes from the game:

1) Wow, USC really puts the opposing fans in the crappiest seats in the building. And they position us so the band and cheerleaders couldn’t get anywhere near us for all the barricades that are setup to keep (I guess, though I’m not sure why) people from getting under the USC band bleachers).
2) The coliseum is picturesque (unlike the surrounding several square miles)—but this is a crummy building to see a ballgame in. The field is on one end of the infield and they put the Irish fans in the stands above and behind the big blocks of seats that are cut-off from the rest of the field.
3) 1st play from scrimmage for the Irish—deep pass to Rhema. Nice call, Charlie. Not sure where that play-calling went for the rest of that drive—or the game for that matter.
4) This team is still hounded by penalties. False starts and holding are killing us.
5) That said, USC only had two penalties called against them going into the 4th Quarter. Does anyone really believe USC didn’t commit more than two holds all game long?
6) Memo to the lady sitting a couple of rows behind me who kept yelling at me to sit down—may I remind you that you are attending a NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL game.. not the opera, a film, or the Ice Capades. Stand up and get loud. That’s what we’re there for.
7) Otherwise a good crowd of fans around us—with a few SC fans sprinkled in for spice. Met a guy from Franklin Mass—recognized him by his accent. He’s living now in San Diego and was at ND during the “Oust Faust” years, as he put it. And yes, he does remember Pete Carroll when he was coaching the Patriots.
8) Two high-school girl SC fans in the seats behind us. When I asked one of them how they came to get such sucky seats—being USC faithful, surely they should get better, no?—her reply (and I am not making this up) was “I don’t know; my Daddy got them for me.”
9) I hate that damn USC fight song.

We Are N.D.

Highlights from the Pep Rally-

Lots of Rah-Rah at the Pep Rally in Anaheim tonight..
speakers included Joey Getherall (now working as an LA Cop), Derrick Mayes, and Tim Brown.

"SC has a good team.. but WE ARE BETTER" was the theme from Chuck Lennon, the head of the Alumni association.


Go Irish! Beat Trojans!

Only in SoCal

I've only had the opportunity to come to Southern California twice now, and I must say, is this place always this freakin' beautiful!?
Went for a drive with my old roommate Steve, who lives out here, to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano, up to Laguna Beach, just to see the ocean.. and, as Steve put it, "There you go-- on the day after Thanksgiving-- people surfing. Only in Southern California."
Plans for the next two days look something like this..
Heading to the Pep Rally in Anaheim tonight. Then tomorrow, take a shuttle bus to the Coliseum in the morning sometime to hook up with the LA Alumni and the big tailgate they're throwing before the game.

Then it's gametime.. and honestly, who knows where it goes from there.. but I'll try to snap a few pictures along the way for later reconstruction..

Going back to Cali

Happy Thanksgiving from the Mountain timezone.

I'm sitting in the Fox Sports Bar in the Phoenix airport, waiting on my flight to Orange County.

The flight in from Nashville got here almost 40 minutes early.. When was the last time you heard of that happening. Frontier was nice last month, but I still love Southwest.

Media buzz last few days seems to be swinging against the Irish.. And I have to say my own feelings have turned a bit that way as I think about how this game is really going to go. I don't know that an Irish win is likely.. But maybe, just maybe.. they can pull it off...

For this senior class..
For Charlie..

I believe.

Film Review

Nevin O'Donnell gives us chills again...

Vote for Brady!

Click here to vote Brady Quinn for the Heisman!

It's SC week...

What better way to start off the week than to remember why Notre Dame is such a special place..

You go in the Silly category

You can usually count on Colin Cowherd for an interesting take on things.
He's like Jim Rome without all the super-guy SoCal "I'm out" clones posturing..

Click here for a recent segment he did on the Irish, Weis-- and the people who claim the Irish are overrated... good stuff.

(Thanks to the Irish Round Table for the link)

Pimping Linux

Larry Ellison's keynote today was the highlight of the day, as usual..

He announced Oracle's offering of 'premiere, enterprise-level support' for Red Hat Linux.
He claims Oracle will be able to offer the same level of support that Red Hat currently offers at half the cost, as well as providing 'premiere level' support not offered by any Linux Vendor.
In addition, Oracle will indemnify clients on the Linux platform against Intellectual Property liability-- an uncertainty brought on in the market, he argued, by litigation brought by SCO.

Oracle's new program is aimed at promoting adoption of Linux in the enterprise business sector-- overcoming the uncertainty surrounding Linux in the market.

It occurs to me to wonder why he didn't just buy Red Hat. He's certainly not been shy about making acquisitions in the last 18 months.

Of course, this isn't a move aimed at Red Hat.
This is all about Microsoft.

One of the audience members asked him if he thought this meant the end of Red Hat-- and he indicated he felt confident that Red Hat would respond in some manner.

Asked by another questioner if this would mean the end of Windows, Larry replied to great applause "Oh, we should all be so lucky."

"Our company is cooler than your company"

Camera-phone pics from last night's Appreciation Event..

Elton John..


Joan Jett..Devo..

on the show floor

Okay.. so here's the deal about the exhibition hall here at the Oracle show... and it should come as no great surprise..

Macs and iPods are everywhere!

Vendors are giving them away.. people are carrying them around and using them for whatever they're doing.. it's stunning.

I talked to the girl at the FiveRuns.com booth (see the picture at left) for a few minutes. They're giving away a MacBook Pro at the show, and based on their display, the Mac OS would appear to be one of their core platforms. The company is a little over a year old-- selling system management tools... and based on the glimpse I got of their stuff, clearly the Mac UI look, feel, usability principles are taken to heart by these guys..

Dell and HP have big sponsor presences here-- and both CEOs have given keynotes so far-- but the underlying theme here, as I see it, is that the Mac laptops are making a big push into the corporate environment.

In fact, while Oracle's Development head was having one of his guys give a product demo, showing off some integrated Order management and tracking process (BPEL in the background), the item he 'ordered' for the demo was an iMac! This is minutes after the HP CEO had just left the stage..

I'm not surprised that so many vendors are giving away iPods... that's only natural.. but the more I see Apple hardware floating around here, the more I believe there is a trend here.

The Streets of San Francisco

I'm in San Francisco this week for Oracle's OpenWorld Conference.
Flew out yesterday afternoon.. or was it the evening. I don't know.. Stopped over in Denver on the way and I think that hour in the Mountain time-zone really messed me up on what time it was where I left, where I was going. Who knows?

Flew on Frontier Airlines, which I have to say-- I had never heard of before. They appear to be a burgeoning competitor to SouthWest for the low-rate fare market. Based in Denver, they have a pretty good service going, with flights reaching as far as New York.. but their specialty is obviously points in the West and Southwest.

The best part was the in-flight entertainment.
I had basically conceded that I'd have to watch highlights of the ND-UCLA game at the hotel when I got here last night. My plane left at 2:55-- so when we took off, according to my Blackberry, the game was just at the end of the first quarter-- the Irish up 7-0. Not bad. We'll see how it looks when I land in Denver in a few hours, I thought.

So I sit in my seat and notice a little flat-screen TV embedded in the back of the seat in front of me. And as the flight attendants are talking, I realize that they're delivering 24 channels of DirectTV to that little screen.. so then I start really hammering the channel button to see if one of those channels is NBC.. and sure enough...!
For $5 I was able to watch the game, while also flipping back and forth to ESPN and ESPNNews.
And that little surcharge for the TV is, I'm sure, one of the ways they're able to offer the cheaper flights.
I didn't pay for the TV on the second leg of the trip from Denver to SFO, and as a result, that felt like a much longer flight.
Then again, perhaps that had something to do with the nature of that game and how the Irish struggled and hung in there, but were never able to get an offensive rhythm, honestly until the very last drive of the game.

I am SO glad to see that this team can put together a 1 minute drill, though. No more of the ridiculous play-calling fiasco's of the past 10 years where the coaching staff couldn't get the play call into the QB in time. Before the end of this play, Charlie has already get the next play call in the queue. And Brady-- for all his flaws-- really does step up when time is of the essence.

Don't think, just throw, Meat.

So as the captain comes on over the PA to announce that we're making our final descent into Denver, the TV gets muted and I watch as Brady makes that pass to Samardzija.. the cabin is quiet, except for me, muttering under my breath "Go, go, go!" And when he hits the end-zone, I had to throw my arms up in the air and shout (well, not exactly shout) "YES!" Guy behind me was an Alabama fan, also watching the game, so he and I had a chuckle about that as we were filing off the plane.

I started to feel like I was a commercial for this little airline.. and I realize I'm sounding like a similar ad now. So before anyone (who actually reads this) accuses me of being a schill, I'll cut this short for now.

Conference starts this evening.. and based on what I've already seen, there's an interesting trend here among the vendors.. more later.